The Man in the Sailor Hat
by Intoxicated Gnu
Summary: Having given up on Fujiko, Lupin finds himself in a new relationship. This time, it's with a man, and not just any man. The latest installment: Lupin tries to get this mysterious stranger to come out of his shell. Can some hot dogs and a sunset lighten the mood?
1. The Man in the Sailor Hat

Ta-dah! For the five year anniversary of this story (why have I kept with it this long, now?), I have posted yet another rewrite of it! This time, I'm trying to make it more coherent rather than just make it read more smoothly. Is this task possible with such a nonsensical plot!? I do not know!

Original posted 8/26/07...  
Don't kill me, guys.

* * *

He never thought he could have misunderstood her. He knew what she was like. He loved her, and had at least thought she'd felt _something_ for him. Lupin ignored what his friends said, and sometimes what his own head said. He could take the betrayals: using him, deceiving him, even being with other men. What he couldn't take was a broken promise, for which he had begged on his knees to get. Just once, he had wanted her to spend his birthday with him. It was the only day which truly revolved around him, and no media coverage could live up to it. Two weeks had gone by with no visits, no calls. The first thing he'd heard from her had been on TV, where she hung off the arm of some other guy.

It was too much. There was a point where resiliance wasn't enough to fight off heartbreak, and everything he'd had up until that point seemed to wilt and become joyless. He would usually turn to one of the hoards of beautiful women not to refuse him, but it wasn't what he truly wanted.

That was when he gave up.

But he knew that she hadn't been the only thing. She could drive him to ruin and he couldn't stay mad at her. It was everything. Lupin III was the greatest thief that had ever lived, and He had become the greatest thief that could never steal. He wasn't delusional about how great he was. He was sworn to be better than even his grand-daddy. He knew he could have the world in his palm if he wanted to. That was the problem, though. Nothing interested him anymore, not enough to risk his life to have. When he did find something to make a play for, he would lose it, choosing his life over his money, and drink away his sorrows in a cheap hotel room all over again.

Jigen and Goemon hadn't appreciated the change. He'd become too reckless trying to find the fun in keeping on. He'd worked them to the bone—if not with his crazy schemes, which made his past crazy schemes seemed sane, then with having to cover his ass whenever he went too far. They were still the only ones he could trust, but he couldn't blame them when he saw them losing trust in him, spending less time with him as friends. Perhaps they weren't anymore. He had more than a few good ideas as to what they thought of him.

The more Lupin thought about it, the less he had. He had some goodies stashed away. He'd stare at them and reminisce about good times past and had a hard time bringing himself to sell anything more just for another few nights of rich booze and well-dressed sleazy ladies. He was as close to penniless as he had ever been.

What had he gained, then? What did he have to call his own? Some quickly fading fame and a cop that had gone far past obsession? Were those things worth striving for? That wasn't worth his life's work and dedication. All of his years had been a wasted effort, for close to nothing.

He had tried to find other ways to bide his time. He tried to tell himself that he was a well-rounded human being and that there _were_ other things. Nothing felt right, though. He always came up empty. It had been a while since he had started to make other considerations. He'd thought the idea ridiculous, yet it couldn't stop that niggling feeling in the back of his mind that maybe it wasn't. He was torn, unable to find the flower amongst the field of rotted grass. He had tried to plant that flower for himself, but every reason he could find felt empty.

Lupin came to a stop, raising his head to meet his old friend. From the ground, the building towered over him. It wasn't the largest or fanciest, but it had always seemed larger than life, looking over the people in the city with its crown-like roof and laughing.

He'd considered it for a while. The thought kept coming to mind: what would happen if Lupin III disappeared? The best thief to have ever existed, with more successful heists than years, taking his own life. The one thing he had never wanted was to be old and alone. Now, he was doomed to it. He didn't want to live that kind of life. Really, he wondered how he let himself get this far. Lupin smirked a little. He was going to take control. He was going to go out with a bang, the way a Lupin would. Maybe it wasn't how he wanted to be remembered, but he didn't care anymore as long as he wasn't forgotten.

Lupin dragged his feet like he was taking a walk through the park, the air rushing off his cheeks as he took in the familiar view. It was his favorite spot in New York, a spot he'd found as a child and had never been able to resist revisiting. He could see the whole city from the top of that building and nobody ever went up to bother him. He regretted never being able to take Fujiko, and never showing his only real friends.

He walked forward blindly, taken in by the cars waiting to move below, drowning in the deep orange light of the sun that was beginning to set washing over the city. When he caught his breath, looking down at his feet which had nearly reached the end with a grim smile, he realized for the first time that he wasn't alone. Another man sat slouched on the edge. The stranger hadn't noticed him either until that point and stared up in confusion. Embarrassed, the man rubbed at his face frantically, trying to remove the trails of fresh tears that stained his face.

Lupin raised an eyebrow, studying the man who now stood. The man was shorter than himself, had ripped muscles, and was wearing a sailor hat.


	2. The Gintle Reviler

Fujiko wiped a hand across her misty red cheeks. She had to get ahold of herself! It wasn't the first time Lupin had told her off. It wasn't the first time she had pushed too far in testing his limits and realized that he did, indeed, have them.

But why did it feel so different?

From the moment she'd woken that morning, something had felt off. She had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed—literally. She didn't let a silly thing like superstition worry her, though. Until she had overcooked her toast. Her toaster had worked perfectly fine the morning before, so why not that one? She tried making a second batch of toast, taking it out early, but while it had been fine, it seemed to slip from her fingertips onto the floor. She had banged up her knee pretty well in the process. Tired and hungry, she decided to eat the burnt toast after all, and it scorched her tongue! It had to have been sitting there for a good five minutes, and it scorched her tongue. At that moment, she looked up and felt like somebody was watching her.

She knew it was just a coincidence, of course. She would just have to deal with it.

Fujiko stared up at the ceiling, remembering the strange look on Lupin's face when she had gone to meet him. The look he'd had in his eyes was kind of hesitant and lonely, almost like a child, but with a certain air of confidence in what he was saying. She was used to him being pissed off at her, or even giving her a grave look as though their lives depended on that conversation. Never had she seen _that_. It frightened her. She tried to shake off the distractions and reach for her glass, only for her wrist to knock it over. She bit back tears of humiliation as the gin dripped down her legs, ignoring the man who offered to lick it off of her. Lupin would have offered the same.

She buried her face in her hands. That stupid, childish smile… Those dumb little remarks… She couldn't believe she missed that idiot. Of all people, why was it his company that she could stand?

No… that hadn't been the first time she'd seen the hurt in his eyes. There were a few times when she'd made him feel truly betrayed and something in her wanted to hold him close—do anything to make it go away. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she'd chosen to forget those times. But she had her pride and dammit, if she gave that up, what would she have left!?

She slammed her hands down onto the table, her second glass of gin winding up on the floor. She glared at it before deciding to ignore it.

Fujiko swallowed hard. Had that been… wrong of her? What if everything was her fault? She shook her head, reminding herself of all the stupid things he'd done. What did it even matter if it _was_ her fault just this one time? She could just make it up by making him get back together with her! It was time to come up with a plan, she thought as she shifted her eyes so as to make her escape without paying, since she seemed to have forgotten her wallet.

As she stepped out, she slipped, falling face first into the drink she'd spilled just moments before with a loud thud. Pushing herself up, she made sure nobody was watching as she hopped up again to make those plans… only to fall once more. Letting her throbbing head soak up the spilled alcohol, Fujiko groaned. "This may take a while…"

The journey home was one she would never speak of—nay, think of—again. She'd been hit with muddy water, a half-eaten hot dog, three babies, and repeated rivulets of soda from the cans that had been thrown her way. Not even her hair was safe, fidgeting and unmoving moths alike strung in her carefully pampered hairs. No amount of bitching at the offenders had gotten her anything but a few flashes of fingers and she needed a shower more than anything in the world. Even diamonds.

She didn't trust her fate that day. She put on her anti-slip slippers and flipped the drain before pouring in the pink liquid that would promise a fluffy dip in the water. Fujiko turned to disrobe once the water reached am inviting level, afraid that if she stared too long at it, something would explode. The routine of getting her clothes off was a simple one, yet it felt so delicate that day. She lamented the stains that would never come out of her new dress as she pulled it down her shoulder, slowly drawing the zipper down so as not to accidentally break it. If her zipper could make it out okay, then perhaps she wasn't cursed. A smile broke out when she got it down smoothly and she shoved her dress down to her waist.

This bathing thing wasn't so hard after all! The hips were a hard hump to cross, but she skillfully brought her dress past it as the smell of lilac permeated the air, which had taken a light fog. It was easy to slip the thing off, and Fujiko tossed it aside. It would have to be thrown in the garbage once she stopped fearing that the bin might attack her. In relief that her day of bad luck was over, Fujiko pulled her hair back and faced the bath awaiting her. As she did, however, her face fell. Water pooled at her feet, pouring waterfalls all around her. How could she have forgotten to turn off the water?

* * *

Ha, the word count on this is nine-hundred _sixty-nine_. Lol, get it?  
Aw crap, I just ruined it, didn't I?


	3. Sexy Strangers

So there I was, right, feelin' kinda dulled out and wondering why profuse amounts of listening to embarrassingly terrible music wasn't getting me anywhere. Then I thought of this story and a bunch of this just poured out of my mind (like a freakin' creek, man!) so I guess it was. Yay!

Watching someone destroy themselves was uncomfortable. Plus, Lupin had wanted his final day to be as selfish as he deserved it to be, and that was difficult to achieve if you had to share the spotlight. It just wasn't his day. Not yet.

It had been easy enough to pull the other man away from the edge. The forlorn sailor was too self-conscious about being seen in tears to consider dropping to his death in front of another man. Lupin took his hand without question and led the man down the proper way. "Why don't we get hot dogs?" he suggested, a phony smile plastered on his face. "When in Rome, you know."

The sailor nodded, not bothering to mention the fact that the man in the strange suit still held his hand. He didn't quite trust himself to speak yet, his mouth dry and his mind in disbelief that any of this was happening. He wondered how the man could look so happy after how they had just met, even though he knew instinctively that it was a coping mechanism. He couldn't lift his face up from its miserable frown and doubted he would be able to.

Lupin watched with patience as the sailor indicated what he wanted on his hot dog, sending glares whenever the merchant gave them a dramatic sigh of wasted time. He didn't care that people were waiting behind them, throwing a twenty at the merchant so he'd shut up. When the sailor had finished ordering his hot dog, Lupin gave him a winning grin before ordering his from the menu of premade options. After handing the sailor his hot dog, Lupin took the man's hand once more and walked away from angry crowd now surrounding the hot dog stand.

His hot dog shoved half in his mouth, Lupin looked down at the man who remained silent. Lupin bit and pulled the hot dog away, mumbling with a full mouth, "Gotcha somethin'." He rummaged through the plastic bag on his shoulder before throwing a cold can of soda at the sailor, who nodded in thanks. Lupin rolled his eyes. It was just his luck to pick up some mute weirdo. He looked around for somewhere to drop the guy. "Let's go rest," he said, nodding towards a bench.

Lupin had never thought himself one to fit the usual definition of _depressed_. If he tried to explain his problems to a third party, he knew they wouldn't understand why he did what he did. And hell, he was a good storyteller. They would more than likely get caught up marveling at how amazing his existence was—even the less fantastic adventures he had were grand compared to the lackluster life of those who didn't have the courage to live his life; he thrived on the existence of such a mass, when it came down to it. Compared to those people, he probably wasn't a fraction as worthless as he thought he was. The real problem lay in that the only comparison he could make was to himself, and he had become one useless bastard. So yes and no, but he probably wasn't what came to mind when someone tried to define the word 'depression'.

Even so, he thought he could start to relate to those people, because the way the mute weirdo was staring at him was staring to freak him out. Usually, he liked to be the center of attention. Lupin fidgeted as he look at the people who passed them by without turning their heads, which he preferred just then to the way that guy was just _staring_ at him with his big empty masses for eyeballs. There were birds and trees and the sun was starting to set, but the man had nothing better to do than look at him. "You're welcome?" Maybe the guy was just feeling helpless because he couldn't express his gratitude. Why was he so worried anyway? He had better things to do. He had to find an escape.

Now he was trying to _escape_? He was becoming more depressed by the second. Gracefully evading the opportunity to ruin his image further was one thing, but now he was trying to escape from some guy he'd found on a rooftop who hadn't thrown a single word his way. Reasoning that out, it had to be all in his head. _Ugh, kill me now_, he thought with a groan.

"So, you know, it's kind of getting la-"

Lupin was cut off when the mute guy attacked him with his face. Lupin's first instinct was to kill, but he relaxed when he realized that the guy wasn't attacking him in that way. Naturally, Lupin knew how to make a kiss something special, so despite his confusion, he compensated for his initial pause in action. Barely missing a beat, he quickly disregarded the innocent chastity of the sailor man's lips and encouraged the wanton nature that lay under the skin of every man. He heard the can of soda hit the ground.

When the two broke apart, the sailor was left gasping for breath. That had been plenty more than he'd expected. Actually, he'd expected for the man in the red blazer to make good on his death wish. The sailor took a bite of his hot dog, which had left a few stains on his pants in the meantime. He put it down again, sighing at the other man's expression of expectation. His mouth no longer felt quite so dry, so he said the only thing that came to mind: "Wow."

Lupin laughed. So he did speak! And his voice had been drawn out the way Lupin was best at. His smirk widened. "Well, I'm guessing you're not having _girl _trouble, then."

The sailor's face flushed and he tugged at his collar a little. Lupin didn't push this.

"So." Lupin, now knowing how to get the man to speak, pulled the man in and gave him a big, fat smooch on the lips. "Do you have a name?"

The sailor swallowed thickly. "Popeye," he half-panted in a rugged voice that sounded like it hadn't been used in a month. "It's Popeye," he said before leaning back in as the two engaged in Lupin's third favorite hobby: making a scene.


End file.
